Nebulae
by Laryna6
Summary: AU: When the Score that sets the planet's fate in stone is broken, then watch out for falling timelines. Luke would rather have died than destroy Akzeriuth. Life, memory, time, sound, identity: all fall under the seventh fonon. One future? Not anymore.
1. Nebula

Disclaimer: I don't own anything anyone else owns referenced here, including Namco's Tales of the Abyss & related things.

A/N: Two thousand years divided by, oh, say fifty years to be conservative forty lifetimes (or more: we don't know how available healing fonic artes are to the general populace, but given that seventh fonists are rare and a lot just read the Score…). Auldrant's current population is circa three million, and it was probably one hell of a lot lower right after the Dawn Age when the miasma was killing everyone and they needed the sephiroth put up ASAP. Take a person with a high level of intelligence and ambition (usually), in a population with that small a pool of talent over that amount of time and they're going to, oh, go rather far in the Order of Lorelei at some point, be a good enough fontech researcher to be involved in top secret stuff at some point, be drafted for sephiroth construction prettymuch at the start…

Actually, I'm deliberately underestimating his probable database under those circumstances, not to mention erring on the side of caution because Auldrant has nobles & family-exclusive information. Merit alone wouldn't permit, oh, knowing the Yulian fonic hymns, which are exclusive to her descendants. Two divided by three million multiplied by 40 very little chance even a non-random person would have learned them in a past life. Not everyone would have been a pharaoh, obviously. But the fact that this class society additionally limits the possible careers for those of high intelligence without family connections means that the odds of the lives/knowledge base I _do _give him are higher.

-

His hyperresonance was going out of control, and if it did the city would be destroyed and everyone with it, Guy, Natalia, Tear, everyone! And Van had caused it, why? Why? But there wasn't time to ask why, there wasn't time to cry (and he wasn't a little baby!), but there was time…

He didn't want to die. But he pulled his hands to his chest and focused all that power inward anyway. He was so afraid, he didn't want to die alone, but Van was here and wanted this to happen and that was worse than being alone.

The person that looked like him and shouted in his head hated him, but at least they were _someone_. He clung to them, reaching out in his mind, crying out in terror and mourning inside and out.

And died.

-

Asch stopped, clutching his chest. "What was that?" He would have been caught by the monsters chasing him, trying to carry him off, but they were cut down by Guy Cecil, his childhood best friend and now the false Luke's manservant. Luke's friends had been far behind him, but Guy was running so fast now that he was already out of sight. The others were only catching up to him now.

"That was Luke! That had to be Luke! Oh Guy, hurry!" Natalia ran past him without a backward glance. So that cry hadn't only been in his head?

"You're coming with us." The Necromancer grabbed him, tugging him along, and although Asch shook away his arm quickly at least it got him moving again.

"Ion!" The fon master guardian's doll, the one Dist had made for her, was letting even a child speed past him. Him, Asch the Bloody, god-general. He sped up, but unlike those in a panic he wasn't able to put his heart into it. Whatever had happened, he knew, was all over already.

"Van! What did you do? Where's Luke!" Guy was demanding at the top of his lungs when the came within earshot.

"Luke came here with Ion and I to destroy the miasma, and then his hyperresonance turned back on himself! It's all my fault." Van's shock was real. The sadness for Luke's sake wasn't.

"Liar! You planned to use him to destroy Akzeriuth! That idiot trusted you! Now, tell me!" Asch vaulted down. "What happened!"

"Destroy Akzeriuth?" Natalia gasped. "What happened to Luke?"

All around Van, Ion, Asch, and soon Guy was a cloud of the seventh fonon thick enough to be visible, a golden red-tinged mist. Replicas were made up of seventh fonons. Asch, mesmerized, trailed his fingers through it, watching the patterns his touch made. Some of them clung to his skin even though he wasn't trying to use a fonic arte. "The replica disintegrated." There wasn't any of the normal anger in his voice then, not even the contempt for a weak thing that would do this. "He turned his hyperresonance on himself so it wouldn't destroy the city." The stupid thing sort of deserved it for not listening to Asch, but he couldn't think of it that way. Not after hearing that cry, that heartbroken cry, and yet it was so brave, so brave to do this… What right did it have to come to him for comfort? He'd tried to warn it! But he hadn't explained, or… he'd known it wouldn't believe him, that was why he hadn't given it any details, it would have gone straight to the person it foolishly trusted.

But knowing it wouldn't believe his warnings made those warnings nothing but tokens, attempts to stop him from feeling guilty. He could have taken actual action to stop the replica from being here, it wasn't like there hadn't been opportunities on the way. He'd known the replica wouldn't believe him from the start, so he hadn't really done anything to stop this. And now it was dead, in his place, and the city was still here.

Unless he destroyed it himself.

"Luke…" Guy also was reaching out to touch the hovering fonons, seeing them respond to his voice for a few moments. Then his eyes hardened.. "Vandesdelca, you monster!"

"I won't forgive you!" Tear's knives appeared in her hand.

"If God-general Asch is telling the truth, you attempted to murder ten thousand citizens of Malkuth." The necromancer's spear appeared, red eyes hard.

"How dare you try to use my cousin like that! I, Princess Natalia of Kimlasca, will execute you the way you should have been! Luke saved you, and this is how you repay him!"

Anise got Ion out of the way, tugging him over towards Asch. As Asch, mesmerized, watched the fonons and Anise watched the battle Ion gathered his power. There was a Daathic Fonic Arte that allowed communication with the memory particles of the very recently departed, provided they were strong enough. Luke's were strong enough to be visible. He should have done something to stop this, he had to at least say goodbye! "Lost Wake!"

Gold shimmered into a face, a form, in front of Asch. "I'm sorry, Ion. I shouldn't have…" Shouldn't have what? Believed his teacher? Could Asch blame his replica for replicating his own faults?

"Replica."

Seeing him, it retreated an insubstantial step, eyes wide and childlike. Hurt. As it had been when it killed, only this time… It wasn't afraid of killing, it just hated it. It hated that it was dead and Master Van had wanted it dead. It wanted to curl up and die, no, rest in peace. Asch wouldn't let it.

It was truly frightened when he reached for it, but the untrained replica couldn't stop a seventh fonist, particularily the ashes of the sacred flame, especially one with its same fonon frequency, from absorbing it.

First its form and then all the gold fonons that flooded the battlefield drained into Asch, who smiled as he felt his power increase. Dual order hyperresonance was his.

No, Master Van could wait, he wanted… the replica's memories of the past seven years, the time it had served as his replacement. He wanted those memories of the time he'd missed with his family so that he could train under and serve Master Van. They were his!

But they weren't.

The replica… It… Wasn't him. These weren't his memories, this wasn't its family. He'd thought they were happy with his replacement, but they'd missed him dreadfully and tried to break away the replica's 'shell' to reveal him inside, but he wasn't there to find, and the only one who had truly seen it was Master Van, but he'd only seen 'foolish replica Luke…'

It had begged him, it had begged him to let it rest in peace. Asch cried out now, at these memories. Van had betrayed both of them by doing this. Asch had thought his family was happy and Luke had thought he was loved. Neither of them had been.

He wasn't sure whether he was screaming or laughing.

_Stop! You're going to do what he tried to get me to!_

That was right, he was calling on his hyperresonance and he couldn't control it. He couldn't do anything. Destroy the city and himself… so _he_ was the light of the sacred flame after all, not the replica. "I am… I really am Luke fon Fabre…"

_No!_

And the power he summoned was pulled out of his control, bound to the replica's desire to get away from this place, just like he'd wanted to force Master Van's attacker away from him and his home on the day this all began (or so the replica had thought).

Asch, no, Luke fon Fabre woke up in that same field of selenias.

"Are you awake?" He felt a strange warm sensation. Opening his eyes, he saw that it was the replica's insubstantial hand. "Finally! Let me go!"

"Let you go?" Luke managed to sit up, still groggy.

"I died, so let me rest! I don't know what you did, but if anything happens to Ion because you messed with his arte…" The replica was trying to look strong, threatening, and angry. It wasn't working, and that was only partially because Luke could feel the devastation that underlay the surface. Van had tried to use him, use him as a weapon and use him up. He'd nearly been used to kill an entire city. Now Ion could be hurt because of him!

"You want to just lie down and die?"

"I'm dead! That's what dead people do! I'm not going to haunt someone who, who doesn't even care about his family!"

That stung, and stung hard because it was true, wasn't it? He should have said 'Fine!' and have done with it. After all, the replica had done what it had been made for. In fact, no, it hadn't, since it had been meant to replace him and destroy Akzeriuth and hadn't done either, not really. But Luke was unhappy, and angry. "Coward! And you're supposed to be me?"

"I was, but I'm not! I don't even have a name, I can't do anything right, and I'm dead! Just, just let me rest!" It would be crying if it had tears to shed, even without out them it was still fighting not to sob, that wild defiance in that plea for…

"I'm not doing anything to keep you here, not on purpose anyway."

"So why can't I leave!"

"…It might be because you're my replica, or I had our fon slots synced…"

"I'm stuck here?" No… Its shoulders hunched in despair and it looked down at where insubstantial hands clenched selenias that only looked healthier for it (the plant drew energy from fonons, not light).

Luke felt like an utter bastard again. His anger at it had mostly been so he didn't have to feel that way, now that he understood it, but seeing it try to be brave and look so young brought back memories of when he'd had his own life and name taken away. They'd been given to the replica but they had never truly been the replica's. What Luke had starved for had starved it. He reached out to it. "Hey…"

It looked up, masking pain with anger. Perhaps they were alike after all. Luke drew it in, the way it had run to him before. Not a theft of power but an embrace. It was drawn into him quickly, and then he gasped. It felt _right_. As there had been some void and the replica's fonons filled it. Sure, it was a little bit of a tight squeeze, perhaps because the replica had grown since the data had been extracted, but that felt better than it otherwise would have. It meant that he was aware that it was there, he felt full instead of empty.

The replica clearly felt snug. Luke lay back again and got comfy in among the flowers, somehow knowing that no monster would bother them. He was content, his replica was content, resting in peace, and he could feel fonons drifting up around them (they must be near a sephiroth). He'd been running and fighting like a madman trying to get to Akzeriuth and it would be safer to leave at night, when the monsters were weaker.

He needed to get to Belkend to find out more about what Van was up to, but that would be a long walk. The replica's experiences with hyperresonance had both ended up here, and it wasn't much good to try it and just end up right where they started.

…he should probably think of a name for him. It wasn't right to keep calling him 'the replica.' Dying nameless… Luke'd think of one in the morning. Or evening.

"Asch."

"What?" Luke opened an eye just enough to see the golden glow that enveloped him had taken the form of a cuddling replica. He noted absently that it was strange that he wasn't kicking it away, but it wasn't like there were any other blankets just lying around here.

"Asch. I'm dead, I'm ashes. I'm not Luke anymore, and you used that name when you weren't Luke anymore."

"Won't that be confusing?"

"Like having two of us isn't already confusing the hell out of everyone. Except you and Van, because you knew about it. And if I move on then it won't be a problem anymore."

First the replica had taken Luke, now it wanted Asch? But then, he'd thrown them both away. The replica should have a name of its own, one that wasn't a cast-off, but Luke was too tired and mellow to argue. "Fine, fine."

This time it was quiet and let him go to sleep after saying, "Thanks."

Why was it so happy? This was the first thing Luke had ever actually given him, the only name that he had been given instead of being wrongly labeled with. Luke supposed he could keep it if it meant that much. Luke had once thought he'd die nameless himself.


	2. Protostar

When he woke up it was still daylight but, judging from the fact his replica's (calling him Asch was going to be confusing) friends were here it wasn't the same day. He had to bite back the urge to tell them to go away and let him go back to sleep.

It was when someone (Guy, he saw) sat down next to him and pushed at it that Luke realized there was a weight lying on him. Cracking his eyes open again the way he had when he heard them call out he saw that it was his replica. Only he looked more natural: colors other than that red-gold could be made out through the glow, as well as the fact that he had weight now. Luke pushed himself up, waking up his replica a bit. "Rep-Asch. Wake up." He shook him gently. "You're solid." Sort of.

His eyes blinked. "I am? I am!" He smiled like the child he was. It wasn't being alive again, but, "I think it's the fonons."

"Then we're staying here until you've gotten enough." Luke flopped back down.

"Really?"

"You died averting my fate and the city's. Akzeriuth is still intact, right?" Luke opened his eyes again to see all of them.

"Yes. Commandant Grants seems to find this upsetting. Am I correct in thinking that you are the original Luke?"

"Yes, he is." His replica was the one to answer, which was fine by Luke. "Van, Van created me when he was kidnapped, to die at Akzeriuth as the Score predicted, 'destroying myself and the city.' He made me think that I could destroy the miasma, so… and then he made my hyperresonance start to go out of control. I didn't know what was going on, but… I made it so that I would be the one to be destroyed. Then the real Luke came, he'd been trying to get me not to do it…"

"Not very hard," Luke interrupted.

His replica ignored that. "And he almost did it. So I wanted to get out of there and we ended up here again."

"So all that stuff Van said is true? Damn it! I'm sorry, Luke." Luke would have said the apology was accepted only he soon realized it wasn't himself Guy was apologizing to.

"It's okay, Guy. You didn't know." Asch sat up and gave him a hug, which not only made Luke jealous (of who? Of both?) but irritated that his blanket had started moving around. "And Luke is his name. It was his first. We traded, I'm Asch now."

"Oh, Luke, and Asch." Natalia… "I should have known!"

"No one knew, Natalia. I didn't even know!" His replica had not only lain back down like a good blanket but was also reassuring Natalia, who Luke had no idea how to deal with after all this time. That's it, he was keeping him, his sleep-fogged mind decided as his replica continued. "Or… wait, Jade, you knew?!"

"After seeing Choral Castle and the two of you I had my suspicions, but… I would have preferred that it not be the case."

"Well, I would have preferred not dying and Akzeriuth not almost getting destroyed!" Asch yelled.

Luke groaned. "Not so close to my ear."

"Sorry." Asch wound his arms around him. It was nice, to be hugged.

Luke patted him distractedly. "It's okay."

"Wait, did Luke just apologize?" Anise seemed astounded.

"It's Asch, and what's so weird about that? I apologize. Just not to just anyone," Asch grumbled.

"If he was going to apologize for the things he couldn't do because he wasn't me he would have been apologizing all the time. I would have gotten fed up with and only apologized if someone I respected the opinion of thought I had actually _done_ something wrong too," Luke agreed. It was too bad that the one both of them respected was Van. Asch had definitely gotten his stupidity. Still, Asch respected him like that? Well, Van and now Luke knew the true Asch. Luke had seen all his memories, after all. He was young and didn't have all that many clear ones, which helped, although how long had they been dreaming? "If you're just going to speak ill of the dead then go away."

Asch squeezed him gratefully and Luke stroked his hair again, yawning. "If you want to talk to them then make them get me a blanket." His arm was asleep, he noted. "And a pillow would be nice."

"You're sleeping so much because of me."

"You saved my life and the city. I can put up with paying my debt with a vacation." He opened his fon slots to feel what was going on and was impressed. "I think your body's reassembling itself. How long have we been here?"

The necromancer was the one that answered. "Ten days. Anise, get a couple of blanket and that pillow."

"What, me?"

"You're the one who understands the least about the subject at hand." Anise left, grumbling. "Ion, what was that arte?"

"It allows someone to speak with the dead if they were strong seventh fonists and died recently. I've never heard of it lasting this long. Luke, are you, is Asch really coming back to life?" The replica Ion sounded so hopeful, happy, worried for his friend.

"Replicas are composed of seventh fonons, and since it appears that both of you have the power of hyperresonance… Although I've never seen something like this."

"You invented fomicry. You don't understand anything if you could do that." Luke wanted to hit him, but he wanted to take down a lot of people and Asch sort of liked the jerk, as annoying as he was. "Hold on." He tugged Asch down and closed his eyes. "Feel that?"

"Yes. Is that the fonons?"

"He didn't teach you how to sense… no, he didn't. You don't have fon slots yet, you must not have recovered that much, but… Yes, like that. Open and pull them in. If I'm not the only one drawing them in and sending them to you this will go faster. No, don't stop taking the ones I'm giving you, what part of make this go faster didn't you get?" That was a little harsh. "I said I'm fine with this." Even if it was making him cranky, to have to hold conversations while doing it. "I'm sorry."

"It's not… I'm the one that let him trick me. It's not your fault I died."

"I disagree, but I don't feel like arguing about it now." He toyed with that hair again.

"How long would this take?" Jade asked.

"How should we know? It's not like anyone's done this before." What a stupid question. "As long as it takes, old man."

"We and Commandant Grants aren't the only ones looking for you. Grand Maestro Mohs is very upset that the Score wasn't fulfilled."

"If he comes and wakes me up then I'll just have to kill him."

"Tear, it's…" Asch was trying to comfort her. "Here." Luke opened an eye again to see what his replica was doing and he seemed to be holding out a cheagle that had attached itself to him before Luke woke up.

"Mieeu…" It said as it flew through the air: Asch had tossed it when Tear hadn't come over to get it. "Don't be sad, Tear! See, Master's fine."

"O…Okay." Strange that Van's sister would be so affected by the cute.

"You're acting really different, Luke, I mean Asch." Guy seemed to be unsure if he liked the change.

"Well… I'm not anybody, so there's no point…" Defending what pride he had. Luke poked him. "What?"

"You're not just anybody, you're my replica. Have some self-respect. You overturned the Score and saved Akzeriuth, for one thing. I couldn't do that." He'd nearly destroyed it himself. He felt his replica wondering if he really meant that. "Of course I mean it, I wouldn't have said it if I didn't."

"Oh, Luke…" Natalia… Neither of them knew what to do or say.

Still, he had to try something. He couldn't keep hiding under his replica. "Natalia, I… I meant to come back, and keep our promise. I did come back, but you seemed happy with him, and Van… If I died then I couldn't keep our promise. But if we overturned the Score, then…" He'd meant to come back after his replica had died at Akzeriuth, but things had changed too much for that. "I'm sorry."

He was too old for snuggling, but his replica wasn't, even if he'd thought he was. Although probably when Asch had started doing it he'd been trying to get closer to the source of the fonons he was being given. No, he wasn't embarrassed, thank you, and where was that girl with his pillow and other blankets?

"What's keeping Anise? Is it like that time you sent her to get the troops to arrest us?" Asch asked.

"I'm sure it's not, right?" Ion asked the Colonel.

"Ion?" Asch was worried about him.

"Yes, he's a replica too, and don't get up to go look at him, I'm getting chilly here." It was just after sunrise, Luke noted idly.

"Really? So that's why Sync looks like you!" Light dawned on Guy. When had he seen Sync's face?

"Yes, the original Fon Master Ion died and there was no heir."

"There was, the Order just didn't want to train someone it was planning on having die at Akzeriuth," Luke corrected him. "The Fon Master is chosen by Lorelei. Ion was only a stopgap, meant to have control between the Hod War, when Evenos lost the blessing, and the Scion of Lorelei's coming of age. He wouldn't have died if he hadn't kept using Daathic Fonic Artes even when they started destroying his body. You are not the Fon Master, I am, although good luck getting Mohs to listen to that." Or, perhaps… "Or Asch might be."

"Me? But you're the light of the sacred flame. And I'm dead."

"Are you? And the Light of the Sacred Flame and Scion of Lorelei are terms that should apply to me… or us. They're not used in the same passage. They could be two different people. To whatever extent we are separate people, at any rate." It felt like, like there were pieces of him in Asch and pieces of Asch in him, like two plants whose roots had intertwined as they grew together and then had been sliced apart. The pieces matching up, was that the rightness he felt when Asch was with him? Without Asch he lacked those parts of himself. Everything seemed so much clearer now, and that was with fonons being drained through him and half-asleep. He wondered how much sense things would make when he was awake.

"Well, I died and it was too late to cast a resurrection arte when Tear got there, and I was in lots of little bits of fonons."

"You're right. You were just a big clump of seventh fonons. You shouldn't be here, Lore…" Luke felt the urge to bang his head against something.

"The definition of a fonon sentience, the ancient meaning of the word scion…" The Colonel, from that rising excitement, seemed to be reaching that same conclusion.

"Really?" Ion seemed amazed, and happy. "That would explain why I knew that I could trust him right away, and that he was really kind!"

"Excuse me, but what are you talking about?" Natalia was lost, and being left out of the conversation wasn't helping.

"I don't know either," Asch told her.

"Wait, you're not saying that Luke, I mean Asch, is Lorelei, are you?" Why would his manservant pick up on it before even one of Yulia's descendants did?

"It is a little extreme," the Necromancer agreed. "But between this and the fonon frequency on that disc… He doesn't seem to be the Lorelei that Yulia made the pact with, but he is a sentient cluster of the pure seventh fonon, and that's what Lorelei _is_."

"…What?" Asch's mind boggled.

"Those headaches he has: I think that's Lorelei," Luke contributed. "The voice. I felt, after our fon slots were synced… but I couldn't feel a voice, I just felt that I was… blurring, getting overwhelmed by a personality. But looking at his memories of them, it's…" He yawned, stretching his arms. "It's the same thing, but although it hurt him he's able to perceive it as just a voice or a person. I couldn't, it's too far beyond me."

"Really?" Asch would take his word for it, but it was still just too weird.

"Really." Asch had sat up, but he leaned down so Luke could stroke his hair, like a pet almost. He needed reassurance, after what Van had done. Luke needed reassurance too, only something like that was beneath him. So giving his replica what he needed was a way to get to cuddle someone without it looking like he was the one that needed it. They didn't need Van, the fool who had treated them like this. They'd loved him and this was how he repaid it? Luke grumbled under his breath wordlessly. "Is that girl sewing my pillow?" Asch replaced Luke's arm with his own. "Thanks." Maybe it would be slightly less confusing to call his replica Lorelei? But then, what about the one that spoke to them?

"I can't think of what's keeping Anise." Ion sounded a bit like he missed her.


	3. Main Sequence

Wait. "Anise. Anise Tatlin?"

"Yes?"

Damn it. Luke forced himself to sit up, dislodging his replica. "Her parents are in debt to Mohs and she gives him regular reports." He probably should have paid more attention to his replica's followers. "He wants the score fulfilled, and that means Akzeriuth being destroyed. Did you post troops there, to keep evacuating the citizens?" Luke asked the colonel.

"Of course. They were 80 evacuated across the border at Kaitzur when we left."

"If they're not dead." He did not want to leave this place. But then, Akzeriuth was on a sephiroth too: there would be seventh fonons there the same as here. That wouldn't be a problem. Not destroying the sephiroth would be the problem. "If Akzeriuth goes, so does the Albertesque Seal. Van's been using Ion to destroy the Daathic Seals, and as a descendant of Yulia the Yulian Seals aren't a problem for him."

Guy seemed taken aback. "What does Van want to mess around with the sephiroth for?"

"What do you know about the Sephiroth?" And how had he realized that Luke was talking about the protections that kept the sephiroth from being tampered with?

"You didn't… well, I didn't know about you." Guy sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm a descendant of the keepers of the Albertesque Seal."

"You're from Hod?" The other sephiroth that maintained that seal was the one on Hod.

"Yeah. I knew Van when we were kids."

Asch would have said small world if he wasn't aware of how small a planet with only about three million inhabitants was. "I'm not sure, exactly. I was planning on heading to Belkend as soon as it was nightfall, but that was delayed and a Malkuth landship would attract too much attention." Heading to Daath or Yulia City at the moment would be putting his head into the monster's mouth.

"Would they really kill everyone from Akzeriuth?" Had he died for nothing?

"In a heartbeat. He'll probably have Kimlascan troops do it, though." No point getting the Order involved. "Possibly as revenge for you." It would have been revenge for him, if he'd been the one sent to his death.

"Then we need to return to Baticul!" Natalia exclaimed, "We have to stop this!"

Natalia had become a great princess, he'd kept track and she'd kept their promise, but she was too naïve. "Natalia, that would be playing into Mohs' hands." The same as staying here would be. Luke looked down at his Maestro Robe with distaste. "Does anyone have some spare equipment I can borrow? I'm officially retiring." Mohs would be trying to use him to destroy the sephiroth, meaning he and Van would be joining forces temporarily again. Maybe he should just hide out until the end of the year. Or until Asch recovered and he stopped feeling tired all the time, at least.

"Here." Guy fished him some gear out of the item bag, looking a bit strange.

"Thanks." He looked at Asch. "Can you…" He motioned upward.

"I'll see." Luke could feel that Asch had to separate out a bit to do it, but he held on to the fonons so it wouldn't set them back. He was indeed able to float upwards, after a bit of trial and error.

"Natalia, Tear, would you mind?" They blushed and looked away while Luke changed hurriedly into a spare copy of replica-Luke's usual outfit.

"Luke, you were right. There are Oracle Knights all over the Tartarus, and some are headed this way."

"We'll have to head for the sephiroth. It should be somewhere around here."

"There's a sephiroth here?" Tear smiled. "The selenias, of course! But we didn't see it when we were here before."

"Well, the light's better now. Asch, go look and let me know if you find anything." Asch nodded and floated upwards again, the spare fonons sorted into wings. He wasn't using them, but that was an image associated with flight and it made it easier to hold onto them than keeping them in a cloud.

Asch being further away made it harder to channel fonons to him, but he seemed to have mostly gotten the hang of getting his own. For some reason that put Luke in an even fouler mood than he already was. That, or the distance. In fact, he was less angry at the world now, despite the circumstances, than he usually was. He'd have lost his temper long before now, normally.

He felt Asch's alarm and cursed, breaking into a run. Alright, _now_ he was going to lose his temper. "Sync, leave him alone or I'll take you apart!"

Asch didn't know how to use fonic artes and wasn't solid enough to fight normally. That meant his only recourse was a raw blast of power. Power not taken from the fon belt but from his own form: Luke saw two of the pseudo-wings vanish as the combatants came into sight. Seeing Sync hit the ground hard enough to sink into it was satisfying, but that had probably set them back twelve hours: it was a fiftieth or so of the total power Asch had. He'd started out with some and was gathering it faster now he knew what he was doing. In fact, Luke thought, maybe he should leave them to it. Being forced to fight was causing Asch to get his act together on the fly. There was nothing like mortal danger, as Akzeriuth had proven (and his journey had) to get someone whose main problem was being coddled to grow up quick.

But Luke hadn't known about that 'speak to the dead' Daathic fonic arte, and who knew what Sync had in his arsenal.

"Radiant Howl!"

Although now Sync was knocked out it appeared to be moot. Now that Asch knew what he was doing that mystic arte was very, very impressive. Radiant _Howl_: it had been a seventh fonic arte all along, or trying to be.

Luke drew his borrowed blade to finish him off.

"No."

"He's our enemy, Asch!"

"Please don't." Ion? "He's another replica of the same person as I am."

Maybe what he and Asch shared was only an original and replica bond, or perhaps only the two of them, but that made Luke pause. "He's not going to give up, and I don't know if you can…" He'd stopped hating his replica very quickly, once he understood. Maybe Sync and Ion… Luke saw that same loneliness in Ion, and remembered in Sync, now that he knew his own feelings. "Can you put a curse slot on him?" That could keep him from attacking anyone.

Ion nodded.

"Wait, your health, Ion!" Anise wasn't here to remind him, so Asch did. Anise might not ever be here by his side again. Under those circumstances, could Asch take Sync away? "And I don't know if it would work. A Curse Slot needs a working fon slot to take over, right?"

"Yes."

"You're kidding me." Luke stared, sheathing his sword. "Your mystic arte sealed all his fon slots?"

"He's only got seventh fonon ones. I wasn't trying to do it, it's just what the arte does, I think?" Asch shrugged.

"Do you think it would work on Van?" That would be nice, very nice.

"He's not just a seventh fonist."

"It's a lot better than nothing." Thinking of Van made Luke return to business. "Guy, carry him. Asch, get up there again. He's not the only one coming after us."

"Uh… Sure." Why was Guy hesitant to do it? Okay, carrying god-generals wasn't quite part of his job description.

"There's something behind this rock. Hey, Thing, break it!"

"Sure, Master. Ah-ha!"

Luke made a mental note that the cheagle was stronger than it looked.

"What do you think, this looks sephirothy, right?"

"Is there a passage ring anywhere?"

"Well, there's a clump of third fonons over there."

"Really?" The cheagle scurried over.

While that was going on Luke noticed something. "Asch…"

"What?" His replica wasn't a very good actor. Or, to be fair, he pulled off brat pretty well, but not innocent.

"I'm gathering them for you, not for every random replica we run across." Luke didn't actually need to gather them for him anymore, but he wanted to.

"But Ion's my friend, I don't want him to disappear!"

"I suppose, but why is Sync getting half the ones you're giving away?" Luke looked closer. "Did you unseal one of his fon slots to do it?"

"Well, I had to, they couldn't get in otherwise."

Luke sighed. "Asch, stop that right now. He only needs it if he's going to cast Daathic Fonic Artes, and he won't be doing that if you keep all his slots sealed. If you make him strong enough to fight us again then I _will _kill him this time."

After a moment Asch nodded. "Alright."

"You really hate the idea of people dying, don't you." It wasn't a question. He'd thought it was fear of blood or general squeamishness when he'd seen his replica for the first time. It wasn't that.

"It's… it's worse now that I've died. I don't want anyone to have to die. If a whole city died because of me… I couldn't stand it, and it nearly happened. I won't let it happen."

"Neither will I. So let's get going." The others seemed to be having their own private conversation. Hopefully Guy would cheer up Natalia.

The passage ring wasn't here, so they had to keep looking. Some of the monsters here were quite strong. Luke would have been worried, but even though he felt tired he fought better than he ever had. One of them nailed him but good and he was fully healed before Natalia could do a thing. They agreed that it had to be all the seventh fonons.

They were almost to where Asch swore the entrance to the actual passage ring was (now that he knew that it was the thing Van had taken him to) when Legretta the Quick appeared. Van must not be exactly sure where they were: of course Sync would have caught up with them first. Luckily Asch was looking around in the ring.

"Major!" Tear had knives out, and even though Asch wasn't here Luke could see their last encounter through his eyes. Yes, Legretta had trained Van's sister. This wouldn't be as hard on her as it would be if he had to fight Van, but it wouldn't be easy.

"Not now, Tear. Asch, is that you?"

"Didn't Anise report that it was? If you're wondering why I'm no longer wearing my maestro robes, it's because _I quit_. And my name is Luke again. Luke fon Fabre. Tell that to Van!" He drew his sword, warning Asch to stay away this time. Sync was, besides Van, the only one of the god-generals that should actually be able to hurt him, but they needed someone besides Natalia to watch Ion in case they tried to snatch him. Although removing the Daathic seals was somewhat moot until the Albertesque seal could be destroyed.

"You'll have to give him your resignation in person, in Akzeriuth!" And the fight was on.

When it was over he could feel Asch's reluctance. "Don't get in my way this time! Sync's another matter, but Legretta chose her path!" The blade came down, over Asch and Tear's objections.

Then the screaming started. "Asch!" What had he done? "Ion, take down that seal!" Asch was still in the sephiroth. Luke cursed himself. He should have thought, he should have realized! The seventh fonon was the fonon that healed, the fonon of sound, he should have considered that there might be something to his replica's hatred of killing other than sentimentality! He had to get to him, it was taking too long!

His replica was in his arms now, and in his body's fonons, and curled around him. "I, I felt her die."

"I won't," Luke found himself promising. "I won't kill again." Get someone else to strike the killing blow, he could do that. The colonel would have no problem with it. Since they were so connected it was as if Asch was the one that killed her.

"No, I won't…"

"It's not crippling me and it's not being a burden! This isn't something you can help! You kept your fon slots closed in battle because of this, didn't you, so you wouldn't feel it? But now if you don't stay open you'll die and I'm not letting that happen. Your followers will just have to make themselves useful! Let me worry about it, Asch. When you used your overlimit and those attacks on Sync, that hurt you enough. If you're screaming like this you can't fight, and what if we're fighting more than one person? You can still fight, I'll still fight, but we'll leave finishing them off to someone bloodthirsty like the necromancer."

"Really?"

"Really."

They decided to just sit there for awhile, waiting for the others to catch up.

Then Asch was startled, the reaction causing the gold around them to shimmer. "Someone just resurrected her! A seventh fonist… Van's here!"

"Show me the fastest way there!"

"I think I could manage being solid now," Asch told him as they ran. "I've got enough fonons and it's hard to keep them from flying off, I lose track of them."

"Try it," Luke ordered.

Asch nodded, stopping long enough to pull them spiraling into the image of his body. "It's not perfect, I don't think I can manage eating, but I can fight." He caught up quickly, a little too quickly to be natural.

"Even better. Asch, what did he do to make you go out of control like that?"

"He…"

"Never mind, I remember it now. Do you think it would still work?" The last thing they needed was to lose this sephiroth in a trial run.

"I don't think so. It worked because I didn't remember it." That was a good summary of hypnotism. "Now that I do, it shouldn't."

"Did he do anything like that to me?"

Oh, hell. To both of them. That wasn't the first time he'd hypnotized Asch, not by a long shot. In retrospect, Luke realized, it was so foolish. Why had he come back to him? Why? Why hadn't he… "We need to stay here, out of the fight. Can he get in here?" Until they got loose of all of this they couldn't be trusted around him. The replica had been under better supervision: the initial programming had gotten destroyed as he learned and Van had only been able to do it twice after that. Luke, however, had been in the Oracle Knights all this time. He couldn't fight Van, not seriously. Give Van enough time to say the key words, the type of key 'foolish replica Luke' had been, and he'd be at war against himself.

"Not for awhile. They're fighting him now, Tear just used Barrier."

They wouldn't last all that long. "The seventh fonon controls memories. Can you get rid of what he did to me?" He hadn't even been able to see those memories himself, but Asch had.

"They're buried, that's how they work." His replica held him. Luke needed it: the enormity of this was too much for pride to matter. It was only them here, only himself and his replica. "But our connection is even deeper. I think I can, but you have to trust me." More than he trusted Van: that was unspoken.

That should be obvious, but he'd trusted Van even when he knew better, and he knew better now, and Van had used his replica against him, made Asch the target of the hate that should be directed at Van. "I'll try. If I hurt you, stop. Just do what you can for now."


	4. Red Giant

"I think it will work better if you control it. Sort of… see what I'm doing in my memories and tell me what to do to yours."

Yes, that would help, even if it was like trying to do things when only able to see them in a mirror… he kept going the wrong way. But it was strange how natural it felt, using Asch's hands and powers as his own. It felt like he was doing this himself. He wasn't afraid of Asch, just ashamed at how much control he'd let Van have. Asch's sympathy would have felt like pity, like contempt, and he would have been angry at it if he hadn't known that yes, Asch was going through the exact same thing.

Warped mirror images.

He should have known that Asch wasn't keeping a lookout, let alone track of time. After all, he was the one who had turned all of Asch's focus to himself. What jarred them out of each other was a fonic hymn being sung _right next to them_.

Van.

The last thing Luke had Asch do before they flew apart was get behind him.

Van. Legretta. Sync had also been revived, although he was hanging back, slots still sealed. Largo, Arietta, Anise had the probably-unconscious Ion, Tear, and Guy (for some reason). Where were Natalia and Jade?

Dead, he realized instantly, as Asch took off through a wall to revive them. Natalia was a seventh fonist: hers should linger for awhile but the Necromancer most definitely was not. He wasn't happy being here alone, but Asch needed to hurry and Luke would only slow him down.

"Asch…"

"No. My name is, and always has been, Luke fon Fabre." He wouldn't have interrupted Van so easily before, nor would he have declared that, and he noticed Van's rapid thoughts when he heard that. Luke fon Fabre was the son of the man who invaded Hod. Perhaps 'Asch' had been a way for Van to treat him differently. Luke was the one he hated and would get vengeance on. Asch was the one he needed.

Dual-order resonance would allow him to neutralize all their fonic artes, but sadly that wasn't enough of an advantage with this group. Oh thank goodness, Natalia was alive!

"Very well then, Luke. It is after Akzeriuth and your replica is dead: sadly it wasn't able to finish the job. The Score has not yet been fulfilled, and until it is you cannot go home without Mohs pursuing you."

"You killed Natalia and you still try to pretend that you were ever going to let me go home? Give it up, Van. What were you really after? Why all the replicas? You said you were planning to destroy the Score, and yet I never asked _how_. Well, I'm asking _now_." Asch was going to need his help for Jade, but he could keep him from returning to the fon belt until someone could revive him by himself. They hadn't left Natalia with any life bottles, damn it. Guy had been carrying the item bag.

"Why do you think that I killed Natalia? I know you have feelings for her. I left her and the soldier with the Oracle Knights."

"As though they would have let people condemned by the Score live. You're not fooling anyone, Van. Not anymore." Asch let fonons gather in the hand that wasn't holding his sword. They were for a dual-order hyperresonance, not the sort that wreaked havoc, but Van wouldn't be able to tell the difference. "Tell me, or I kill us all and let my replica revive whoever he feels like reviving."

"No one can bring back those killed by a hyperresonance. It disperses the fonons of the matter it destroys: even the damage it does to the survivors can't be healed. Believe me, I tried."

"Maybe you can't, but my replica was killed by a hyperresonance. Remember? You were there." He was right, though, Luke realized. His hyperresonance had turned him to pure seventh fonon. If he hadn't already been pure seventh fonon he never would have been able to put himself back together. But Van shouldn't know that. "You're not on our level, Van, and you never will be." Time for a demonstration, he thought. "Watch." He activated the dual-order hyperresonance. It was a bit of a gamble: he couldn't both keep it active and prepare for another one, just like Asch couldn't keep Jade stable _and_ bring him back to life.

It looked like the gamble paid off: Guy, Tear, and Ion woke up. Van had indeed used the first fonic hymn to keep them asleep. They should at least provide a distraction.

Guy, finding himself tied to a woman, screamed and demonstrated impressive escapology skills, although he was moving too fast for Luke to see anything. He sprang away from Anise and stood there, panting. Too bad he was weaponless. Tear was able to get loose in the distraction: Ion remained tied up. "Anise?"

"Ion, I…" Luke would have felt sorry for her under other circumstances. He knew about family.

"Guy!" When his servant met his gaze Luke threw him his sword. Luke was the only fonist present, well, the only person who could use fonic artes with this power active anyway, while Guy was useless without a blade.

Tear managed to avail herself of Anise's staff while she was distracted.

"Tear, leave!"

"None of you are going anywhere!" Largo blocked the entrance.

"Tear, Asch can keep them able to be revived: get over there when you can!" Natalia was headed this way, she might be able to distract Largo long enough for Tear to get by and revive Jade. Luke didn't mention Natalia was already alive in order to preserve that element of surprise.

"Understood." Tear started to warily circle around Largo, also keeping a wary eye on Legretta, who was moving to intercept.

Guy slashed Ion loose and dodged around Sync to Luke's side. "You guys okay?"

"Fine."

"I'm fine." Ion sounded anything but, but he nodded bravely.

"Asch? You gave the replica your name? Again?"

"It never was my name, and I didn't want him to die nameless. An appropriate name for a dead man walking, don't you think? The ashes of the sacred flame, not Luke fon Fabre anymore. That was why you were so fond of it." Van was starting to get the idea. "Now tell me, Van. Why!"

Grimacing, he revealed that, "In order to destroy the Score the planet's memory itself must be destroyed. And the only way to do that is to replace it with a new world. The promised land of Eldrant."

"Replace? A replica of the entire world? Where would you get the fonons? From destroying this one? Vandesdelca, are you _insane_?" Vandesdelca? Why did Guy call him that? Oh, right, they had grown up together on Hod.

"My lord, Gailardia, the destruction of Auldrant is foretold on the seventh fonstone. As mad as it may seem, Eldrant is the only way for humanity to survive. And, on Eldrant, there would never be another Hod."

"What I don't understand, Vandesdelca, is why you would twist the Score to save the son of the man who destroyed Hod and not the child that you apparently created and I spent the last seven years raising. Why didn't you tell me what you had done?" Silence. "If you regard me as your lord, Vandesdelca, then answer!"

"Asch forswore his name, and did it make any difference who died as long as it brought that murderer pain? The power of hyperresonance was necessary, and originals are stronger than replicas. Wasn't it a better vengeance to steal that murderer's son away and use him to make up for his father's crimes by restoring Hod than just to kill him?"

"Restoring… Hod?"

"The replica data of every inhabitant of Hod and the island itself was preserved. It will be the first part of Eldrant to be created, and your family, my family's replicas will live in a world that will never know the tyranny of the Score."

Now Guy, Gailardia, was the one with nothing to say.

"I meant to reveal the truth to you after Akzeriuth, when those fools would think the Score was safely fulfilled and proceed to slaughter each other again as they did while Hod suffered. What loyalty do you have to this world, Count Gardios? Shouldn't your care be for your people, your homeland?"

"Is that true?" Luke asked, feeling sick. Guy, his best friend as a child, had come to kill him and his father. "Is that true, Guy?"

"Yes. My father's sword hangs in your entryway. That was why Sync's curse slot could make me attack Luke, the replica Luke."

"Your father slaughtered his family and Pere found him covered by the bodies of his sister and her maids." Van's eyes were hard, full of old rage.

"So that, so that's why. It was never anything but a lie, was it. I was a tool, and you didn't care how you warped me because…" Luke took a step back, even though that took him closer to the unseen Guy. No, Gailardia.

"No, Asch. I could have left you with your family, left you to die. The replica would have been enough, once I had a stable one. While you were my student, you were truly my student. Luke fon Fabre is the one Gailardia and I seek vengeance against. Not Asch." Not Asch the Bloody, Van's loyal soldier. Not the child with bloodstained hands.

"You made me name myself Asch, but I was always and ever Luke fon Fabre." Natalia's battle cry rang out, the distraction letting Tear spring into action and run past Largo. Natalia also fled, Luke noted distractedly. Asch must have told her to have faith in him. Thank goodness she hadn't tried to stay and fight. "Luke, my replica, he was the innocent one. He was your student too, and you taught him what, a single arte in seven years? You crippled his progress! And Guy, you let that happen? You were my friend, his friend, and…" He stepped back again. He couldn't hide his distress from Asch, who wanted to get him out of here but couldn't without letting Jade be lost, not until Tear got there. He didn't want to force him to have to make that choice, no matter how much he wanted to be taken away from this place, these truths. His father had done that to Guy… Luke had been told by Van years ago that his father had raised him to die at Akzeriuth. It was no different that he had done the same thing to his replica, but Van, Guy, he'd thought better of them, it was that betrayal all over again. Luke had lost both his fathers and his replica had as well. Duke Fabre had never been a father to his son's replacement.

"Luke." Ion's voice, heavy with sympathy. Yes, Ion had been created as just a replacement, just a tool, he knew this. He'd just been betrayed by Anise, after all. "Don't hate them."

"But what can I do?" He didn't know, and he wanted his replica like a child wanted a stuffed animal. Something which would never (knowingly) hurt them. "They hate me."

"No, they don't, not really." Ion's words were more of a stab to Anise's gut than hatred would have been.

"But it adds up to the same thing, doesn't it?" Luke let Ion hug him. "They never saw either of us. They tried to make us into what they wanted so that they could use us. If you say they don't hate us, then by the same token you have to say that they don't love us." Just pawns. Van had hated Luke so he'd refused to see Luke, just Asch. And he'd then given that hatred to his own son wearing the name of Luke, the mask of Luke. And Guy, he didn't know Guy anymore. Neither of them had ever.

He had to get out of here. It was a good thing Ion was holding on to him or he probably would have forgotten about him.

Luke even had an excuse for this weakness: Asch had just put him on notice that if Luke got any more panicked he was going to have to leave Jade and hope Tear got there in time, and he didn't want to do that to Asch.

When he gave himself permission it was the same reflex to drop what he was doing and go to Asch that it had been when Asch was the one in pain.

When he landed in a golden cloud, after they took a moment to make sure the other was okay Luke became aware that he wasn't the only one with a situation. Although Grand Maestro Mohs and a large group of Oracle Knights were a lot less painful than Van, so no wonder Asch hadn't mentioned it. "Modified force field?"

"Yeah." It was a wall instead of a dome and the color was different (not to mention that the wall was solid), but it was very clearly based on the seventh fonic hymn. "I guess it's like that, huh. I was just making a fence, but you're right." The fonons were shaped into a solid wall in the same way they could be shaped into a solid body for Asch. However, the strain of doing this and keeping Jade here (his body was glowing), meant that Asch wasn't solid at the moment. Asch was standing half within where his body appeared, actually. "What about…"

"Luke, Asch!" Natalia and Tear had made it. Tear started casting. "I'm so glad you're okay, you too Ion. Where's Guy?"

Jade groaned as he came back to life. Now that he wasn't strained by supporting him Asch grew more solid and ran over instead of floating. "Are you okay?"

"That depends. Who am I, preciescly?"

"Colonel Jade Curtiss, Malkuth Imperial Forces, I don't remember what division. Commander of the Tartarus, um…"

"Oh, that one." Jade's eyes closed. "I don't want to be that one, he dies when he's about this age. Although he deserved it, doing such a lot of horrible things… It's better than the one after that, though."


	5. White Dwarf

"You're not going to die now, Jade."

"Don't say things like that! You may be a little rude, but…"

"But I am. I remember, I remember everything. Except… I don't remember this." He looked up, frowning. "I remember Akzeriuth being destroyed, and the journey to Yulia City, and going to Belkend with Asch… But I also remember dying at Akzeriuth without even time to realize what was happening, and…"

"You were dead for awhile. Your memory particles…" Asch looked for words. "Lost their place?"

"What?"

"There's an infinity of possible yous, and there's also previous yous and possible future yous. The score is just the most likely thing to happen. How do I know this?" Asch asked himself. "Anyway, there are… the Score had an outcome where I died along with Akzeriuth and one where I didn't but the city was still destroyed, and one where I died but the city lived. You're in that one."

"This is going to be confusing. I've spent the past eleven days calling your original Asch." Jade groaned. "That one still feels the most real. Actually, the one where I died is the most 'real,' but it's hard to get confused between this and that."

"What are the next yous?" Luke asked carefully.

"An infant who will be killed by the plague, and… it's blank in the future of that timeline and everywhere else. Not blank as in I cease to exist, but blank as a page that hasn't been written on." How odd. "And this is the only lifetime in which there are multiple outcomes."

"Does the other you know what Van's up to?"

"The other me doesn't have the slightest clue about a lot of very important things. I wish this went both ways, and I can't remember the future in that timeline either. What happened? I was killed by Vandesdelca Musto Fende, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And Anise is a traitor, you were not responsible for Akzeriuth, you're probably Lorelei, the names were switched, and what's going on?" Jade had noticed Mohs and the Oracle Knights, some of whom were trying artes on the soundproof wall.

Asch and everyone else looked at Luke. "We should get out of here." But where was safe?

"Can you get us to Grand Chokmah? I need to report to Peony." Jade levered himself upright with his spear.

After looking at each other they shook their heads. "It's not a sephiroth. We could maybe get you to the closest one."

"I think that will have to do."

"Give us awhile to figure this out, okay?"

They knew where they were, and where Akzeriuth was and they could go from there, but… "I think I might have to fly there, if we're set on Grand Chokmah." Asch admitted. "This one here has to be the Absorption Gate, right Ion?"

"Right." He nodded as they looked at the rough map they had scratched out from what they could locate.

"If we try to go there we could end up in the core, and the one near St. Bynah is right between it and Akzeriuth, where the Score is pushing at us to go. It's just not safe."

"I suggest you hurry, or Sync will break through the Daathic Seal you replaced, Ion."

"We'll get blown away if we try the Radiation Gate, the Zao ruins would work as a stopgap but they know we've been there, the one near Daath is right out, so that leaves the ones near Keterberg and Sheridan."

Jade spoke up, "If it's to the west of Keterberg I wouldn't recommend it. The monsters there are nothing we'd want to tackle in our present state."

"Sheridan it is, then." Luke nodded. "Provided it _is _Sheridan. Here's the sephiroth," that had already been marked with a dot, "and here are the nearby population centers. Those two are probably Sheridan and Port Sheridan, but there's one here that's also a distortion point, and one here that's mostly uninhabited but another distortion point."

"Distortion point?" Jade asked. "And if I've got my bearings right this one is Ortion Cavern. They mine fominim there, a metal used in fomicry."

"Sounds like someplace we should play a visit," Luke muttered. "But this one?"

"It's not like the other," Asch agreed.

"Do you think we can aim for it?"

"Why not try? If we can't, then we'll go for the sephiroth."

Luke frowned. "Let's head to the sephiroth first, since we know we can get there, and then try it."

"Alright… Ah!" Asch's cry came in the instant the Daathic Seal broke. The next action was a reflex that he truly couldn't help.

Luke cursed: Sync had killed himself to break the seal and it would have been much easier if Asch had been able to just let him die. At least Asch had extended his wall to that side as well. He quickly scuffed out the map with his boot, grabbed everyone in the shield, and got out of there.

-

Desert. That was a good thing: there were a lot more fonons available here without the selenias sucking them up like decorated sponges.

"Lu, um, Asch, why do you have wings?" Tear asked.

"So I can catch more fonons. Like plants have big leaves to catch light. I don't think I'm going to get individual fon slots. Every fonon in me can absorb other seventh fonons. So the more spread out they are the more they can catch. Wings are just a shape that's easy to imagine, so they're easier to control than a big cloud would be."

"I'm amazed you know about photosynthesis. More importantly, I presume that Anise is indeed working with them, but where is Guy?"

Luke didn't want to say it.

"Luke, tell me!" He was Asch's best friend.

"It's, I don't want you to hear it."

"If it's something horrible, I'm going to find out anyway. I'd rather hear it from you than Van." That made sense, get it over with from someone who wouldn't be using it against him.

"He's the son of Count Gardios, the ruler of Hod. He was working with Van all along, although Van didn't tell him about us. He became a servant to get vengeance on our father, probably by killing me."

No.

"He was angry at Van for wanting you to die at Akzeriuth instead of me." He hoped that made it a little better. "I don't think he… He doesn't hate you."

"But he wanted you to die there?"

Luke had nothing to say to that.

"If he wants you dead, then he's my enemy."

"How ironic. How very, very ironic."

"What do you mean, Jade?" Natalia fumed. "How can you take this so calmly! A viper in my cousin's family's breast!"

"In the other timeline, Guy just left us, the group that came with Asch the original, to go wait for Luke the replica to recover. We left him behind in Yulia City, and the other me currently holds him in contempt for Akzeriuth and its aftermath. I want to slap myself. We all abandoned his unconscious body after he fainted during a fight with Asch, except for Tear and Mieu. Guy came along solely to find out what was going on, and now that I know this it makes sense that he left at this juncture. He'd seen enough to put it together even though the rest of us are in the dark. My other self's opinion is that he is rather stupidly loyal to someone who doesn't deserve it. If those are his feelings for Luke, replica Luke, after he destroyed an entire city, then I don't think that it's possible for our Guy to betray you either. What he said as he left, and what you just said… The destruction of a city is anything but a small difference in history, and yet it only now hit home what a huge difference it made. How could the Score have survived this long, if millions of people were making choices constantly? But then, most people leave their choices to the Score." Jade caught himself and adjusted his glasses. "Excuse me, I seem to be getting philosophical in my old age."

"It's said that near death experiences can cause that." This was the first time Tear had spoken up in awhile.

"Near death? The majority of me_ is_ dead currently. This is only about ten percent of what I'm experiencing right now, but it's the only one I can interact with at all, so it's probably the real one."

"What's it like? Being dead?" Asch seemed like he might know the answer when Luke glanced at him.

"It would be a lot more pleasant if they would stop being miserable, it's making everyone else miserable. Although, under the circumstances I quite understand why they feel that way." Jade smiled in a way that made it quite clear the conversation was closed. "Now, where were we? Ah. What on Auldrant is a distortion point?"

It turned out to be a strange carnival city filled with people who weren't dead. Not all of them were doomed according to the Score, but those people should have died with Hod, that war orphan should have starved to death… Asch was torn between horror and wonder. Luke, and Jade, kept from mentioning that this ability to look at someone and know their fate was more evidence he was Lorelei. Luke did it to spare Asch's feelings: Jade was probably following proper experimental procedure or something.

Nam Cobanda Isle, the city of the Dark Wings. And Asch had thought they were just pickpockets. "This place disrupts the Score just by existing. If Mohs finds out about it he'll kill them all."

"Then he won't, and neither will Kimlasca." Natalia's face was set. Tear's was turned away. She'd believed in the Grand Maestro, believed that it was the right thing to support the Score. Learning about Hod, Akzeriuth, and now this? What was she to think?

"An alliance of the doomed." Jade smiled. "Excuse me, where can I find Noir?"

"Who're you?"

"I'm Col. Jade Curtiss the Necromancer of Malkuth." Identifying himself was a threat in itself, that he was here and knew where the city was. "I'd like to open negotiations." As opposed to fire.

Ion and Asch were told to run along and play.

"Anise would love this place." Asch didn't know how Ion could smile like that.

"Guy would be going crazy over all the fontech." Asch's smile was a lot weaker.

"Just because he has other friends doesn't mean he's not your friend. You heard what Jade said."

"But how do we know that Guy wasn't just pretending?"

"I suppose we don't. But Anise told me about why. It's a good reason. I believe in Anise, so I don't mind. I am just a replacement, so if I were to be used up helping her would be a good reason. A lot better than helping Van or Mohs." Asch opened his mouth to protest but Ion smiled again. "You're going to say that you're not just a replacement for Luke, right? But Luke's still alive. He's Luke. But someone has to be Ion. Only… if Ion's not the one who should be fon master, than I shouldn't be. So what should Ion be? Fon Masters are supposed to tutor their successors." Ion's smile became a little more real. "I'd like that. I'll teach Luke, and you, what I know."

"Just stay alive to do it, okay?"

"I will. Don't worry, you've made me a lot stronger and I'll work on becoming strong too. I mean, if I don't teach Luke, Sync certainly won't and Van wouldn't make someone to do it, forget Mohs. I'm Ion's replacement but there isn't a replacement for me."

"Yeah." That was right, even if that wasn't the right way to reach that conclusion. "There's only one Ion that's my friend, too."

"I won't forget that."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Asch had thought about leaving Ion here: there wasn't anyplace safer on the planet than someplace the enemy didn't know existed. It was a lot safer than traveling with them. But Ion had chosen this, and Asch knew all about hating being left behind or being a burden. Ion wanted to do something to shape his own destiny, to help them out, and he wasn't going to argue with that.


	6. Black Dwarf

The Dark Wings were smugglers, among many other things. Grand Chokmah was blockaded but it was a simple matter for them to board a ship for the nearest secret cove and then fly the rest of the way. Asch had to materialize a platform, which was harder than something he could think of as part of him, and Luke had the trip there to learn invisibility, which was the product of one of the higher-level Daathic Fonic Artes.

It was, as Jade remarked, good training.

"So that's why they almost went off half-cocked." Behind that playboy façade Peony was, as the god-generals knew well, anything but oblivious. "It's a little hard to claim your peace envoy was murdered by Malkuth when your princess escorts the refugees to a base where she's unarguably recognized and swears it was the doing of the Oracle Knights, in particular one who was only recently arrested and released by Kimlasca, and it must have been a very serious charge for them to do that. Being suspected of stealing their living weapon makes sense. Jade, I would have appreciated a more than two-paragraph report, and don't give me that look, who needs breakable ciphers when we have embarrassing childhood moments we can refer to?"

"Forgive me for having better things to do than relive our tagalong's mishaps. Mohs wanted to accompany us to verify what happened, or so he claimed. What happened to my troops?"

"Supposedly when Luke wasn't to be found there they tried to slaughter Mohs and the Oracle Knights to cover it up and they were forced to kill them all. I'm amazed, Jade. None of them were willing to live in exchange for telling lies on Mohs' behalf. You had very loyal troops. Or very terrified ones that thought you'd get them for it even from beyond the grave, Necromancer."

"Indeed."

"So, things are tense, but the warning, and ten thousand very motivated people, you brought us paid off. We've got fortifications under construction a ways behind the border. That's being seen as a sign of buildup, but there are fake provocations left, right, and center. The Kimlascans have to admit we'd be nuts not to fortify, and a lot of them are smart enough to pick up that investing that much in defense instead of offense is a sign that we're not the ones looking to start this, propaganda to the contrary."

"Thank goodness. I must return to Baticul."

"Thaaat wouldn't be such a good idea, Princess." Peony started to look slightly serious. "Mohs has made rather serious allegations that you're not the real Princess Natalia."

She just stared. "You mean I'm a replica? But I have… the normal amount of memories, I think…"

Peony laughed. "Hear that Jade? It's the first thing she thought of!"

"Thank you so much for rubbing it in."

Peony gave him a look but returned to Natalia. "No, they're saying you're the granddaughter of your nurse. According to them your mother's child died, stillborn I think, and the queen was rather upset. Your nurse went to a scorer to ask what to do, and was told to take her daughter's newborn baby and switch them. The Queen recovered, the Score was fulfilled, and everyone was happy, except your mother, who drowned herself, and your father, who was thrown in jail after trying to get you back and went on to become Largo the Black Lion."

Natalia's hand rose to cover her open mouth, the politeness of a true princess. "So that was why he said…"

"Said what?" Peony prompted.

"Goodbye, Meryl."

"Yes, that was the baby's name." Frowning, he stroked the back of one of his pet rappigs. "The father of fomicry, a false princess, a spy, Van's sister, a substitute Fon Master, and a Malkuth nobleman. Not to mention his original. You, Asch, have odd people." He leaned back. "The Score has been thwarted, for the moment, and looking at even that shows us how controlled we are by the Score. A group like that: it's not chance, it's not coincidence. Even three would qualify as enemy action, and this is more than three."

"Peony." Jade's face was unusually grim. "I have no intention of letting you be the last emperor of Malkuth."

Peony gave him a longer look this time. "Do I want to know?"

"No. But if that happens, Kimlasca won't have anything to celebrate for very long. If they destroy Grand Chokmah they will plant the seeds of their own extinction."

"Extinction."

"I try to keep my terminology precise."

Peony looked away, staring out his window and petting the rappig without truly paying attention to either. "If it were anyone but you saying that they'd avert my Score of death and my country's, I wouldn't believe them. I'd slit my own throat now in hope that would change _something_."

"Your confidence will not be misplaced." Turning back to the group, Jade told them, "Ion. Luke. Asch. Should we encounter the seventh fonstone none of you are reading the score written on it. Do I make myself clear?" Seeing Ion about to protest, "I have lived it, and it's enough to give even a monster like myself nightmares. I know it. None of the rest of you need to know."

"What should I do?" Peony asked, the emperor taking orders from the colonel.

"Akzeriuth surviving changes the equation. Fortify, Peony. You have ten thousand people whose actions aren't accounted for in the score: _use them._ And do try to stay alive. Aside from that, there's only one thing that will work."

"What's that?"

"Open the Closed Score." Jade finally smiled. "People will follow something that promises prosperity. They'll fight to avoid their own deaths. Tear." He turned to her. "As a descendant of Yulia the fonstones should conceal nothing from you. Will you break Yulia City's vow of silence and save countless lives? Lives like those of your parents?"

After a long moment she nodded.

"I'll have troops secure the city's fonstone assembly and gather the court." Peony stood now, and bowed to her with a rare solemnity. "Thank you, Tear Grants, Mystearica Fende. Thank you on behalf of my country and all the people who may live solely because of you."

She blushed, looking away.

As they left to carry out their assignments Luke followed Jade to the military headquarters: as a former Oracle Knight he knew their strength and he also knew a lot about how Van thought. Although less than he'd thought. "I thought you said you died an infant."

"Yes, I did. But while that infant didn't understand what all those people were saying I can. And I never said _whose _daughter I was."

"Daughter?"

"You'd be amazed," Jade told him. "I remember what life was like before the Score, do you realize that? If I didn't, then the idea of opening the Closed Score, something that drastic, would simply never have occurred to me. Being dead that long worked wonders, although I wouldn't recommend it for those who aren't already insane. I'm used to it, you see."

"Did you know Yulia?"

"No, I was sane in that lifetime. It's amazing how much is dependent on the body and the circumstances you grow up in. There are some common traits, things that show up, oh, ninety percent of the time, but several of my selves are people I would consider utter wastes of space. I think there's a positive correlation between insanity and intelligence. You have to be insane to think about things like fomicry or destroying the Score. A sane person would do the normal thing and buy a doll or lie down and die. Insanity is the mother of invention."

"I wouldn't know."

"Well, I'm not saying that insanity necessarily equals intelligence. Look at you. Or perhaps your insanity is a product of low intelligence and poor taste in friends." He shrugged elaborately, clearly making an effort to get back to his old self. Or_ this_ self, at any rate. "He needs one of the two of you to destroy Akzeriuth. Nothing but your hyperresonance will damage the materials the passage rings are made from: hyperresonance causes matter to destroy itself and so strength doesn't matter. Of course, since the disc was recovered he has a copy of your replica data."

"Why didn't you say that earlier!" Luke grabbed him now, flinging him against the wall. This was the same thing as when he'd failed to tell the replica the truth. Asch the god-general couldn't have prevented Akzeriuth. Jade the father of fomicry might have.

"Because if we're correct and Asch is a manifestation of the sentience of the seventh fonon, then while Lorelei is bound and cannot leave the planet's core, any isofon of you Van were to construct would be nothing but more fonons for Asch. Given the… if Van tries to create another replica it won't work. All the fonons will go straight to Asch. They had fomicry back then, they just called it cloning, and it was illegal because of something I call the Big Bang Effect that you don't need to worry about due to Asch's unique nature. I _hope_ he wastes his time and gives away his location like that, I truly do." That smile didn't look like Jade.

"Keep a hold of yourself."

"Myself?" Jade frowned. "Dr. Jade Balfour or Col. Jade Curtiss? Neither of them knows how to stop what's coming. None of the others do either, but they know nice little tidbits like how to open the construction staff quarters at the various sephiroth, how to give orders to the fontech that runs Yulia City, which a later incarnation informs me that no one today should know how to counter, and such things. It's a little hard to pick out what's useful so I normally let things come to me. Like, for instance, this." He took a red stone in a small cage out of his pocket and let it dangle on a cord. "I gave Noir the plans, and it's still effective." The object was carefully placed back in.

"What's that?"

"I was a… lieutenant, on average, although I tended to have rapid demotions and promotions, during the war that Yulia ended. These were standard issue. I don't know how they work, it was cutting edge at the time and my incarnations afterwards were mostly involved in practical things like getting the sephiroth put up, but they're quite a simple device to construct. They split seventh fonons into their components and put them back together. I do know that the Key of Lorelei was derived from these principles somehow. During the war, every side tried to control the other with prototypes of what became the score. These are a crude but effective defense, although healing spells can't be cast on people wearing them, which was how I tested it." He took it out again and swung it around on a cord. "What's worrying is that I know that these should logically give seventh fonists headaches and I've had one since I started carrying it with me."

"Different versions of the Score?"

"My memory starts with the lifetime of the man who was alive when Yulia created it, and sometimes details of his youth change on me. I think I might even be able to influence it a small amount. We'll see." Jade tossed the device, almost frightening now that Luke knew what it did, up in the air and caught it again. "Of course, he's doomed to be exactly where he was living exactly that sort of life when the Score happened, so there's a limit. The briefing he got is probably the most comprehensive explanation of what the Score actually was that any of them had in any lifetime, and he was just a soldier. It's disheartening that so much knowledge was destroyed that quickly."

"Is this place normally this deserted?" Luke asked to change the subject.

"No, Tear's starting soon. I hope Ion keeps Asch distracted."

"Distracted?"

"Remember what I said about death? About how someone was miserable?"

"Yes?"

"I remember reading the Closed Score on the fourth fonstone. The seventh fonon is sound: you don't read it, you hear it. The voice, and it sounds different to everyone, is always solemn. But if you read certain passages, then even if you've hardened your heart to it over a lifetime you can still hear Lorelei trying not to cry." Jade shut the door to his office behind them. "Part of Van's intent is to kill Lorelei. I wonder if it's vengeance or mercy? Perhaps both."

The fonstone device would be going into mass production. There was another little trick that really should be, but the headache was refusing to go away and Jade valued what sanity he had.


	7. Supernova

"It's going to be a holy war as soon as Daath hears about what we're doing." They all knew that, but standing on Mt. Roneal with that view spread out below them really underlined it.

"Luckily Grand Chokmah is sealed off and Peony knows who to trust." Unlike some people. Tear had been left behind, since she was vitally important to that aspect and should probably be kept unaware of this one. Ion as well: the Fon Master was well known and trusted in Malkuth, unlike Kimlasca. Of course, the Order had focused on Kimlasca recently, since after all Kimlasca was fated to come out on top: why curry favor with a doomed emperor? Jade could almost thank them. Natalia was being seen in public. "Not to mention that we can simply move faster than them." Jade consulted a compass. "The Yulia Road is that way."

"Can you really shut it down?"

"Unless something's broken. If it's a programming error I can fix it, if it's a malfunctioning piece of fontech I might not even be able to spot it." Jade sighed. "I wish we'd kept Guy, he would be useful." The watchers of Yulia City were the Order's ace in the hole, a hidden resource of secret knowledge and fanatical combatants that had no attachment to anything in the outer world. He'd personally found them a bit scary, and he'd been as fanatic as anyone in that lifetime. His alternate self wasn't the only one he wanted to pin to a wall before they made him look any more foolish.

"What do you think Guy is doing?" Asch spoke up out of the blue.

Wouldn't they all like to know. "If he's not in Yulia City then I would suspect either Belkend or Sheridan." He wouldn't even know what the surface where the Yulia Road came out looked like these days if his alternate self hadn't met up with Guy, Tear, and short-haired Luke there. They had no need to go to Belkend or Ortion Cavern since his alternate had done that for them. "Belkend is more likely, unless he's joined forces with Commandant Grants."

"He could be in Belkend to find out what they did?"

"Exactly. Or Yulia City for the same reason. If he's decided to turn him down and try to find us, Yulia City is the best place to wait. It's Tear and Vandesdelca's home, for one thing. Ah, there."

The cave entrance was exactly the same. "There will be monsters inside and we'll have to walk a ways. I don't know how far. My alternate met them at the entrance."

"Met who?"

"Asch, Guy, and Tear, after Asch regained consciousness. Then they were off to Daath to rescue Ion. Tactical information from that timeline won't stay useful for very long, if at all. It's amazing what one thing can change." He hoped.

Well, that was easy. When they arrived he saw why. "It hasn't changed." They'd dressed to fit in, based on Tear's descriptions, and he'd gotten some warning from the fact they were still wearing modifications of the Holy Engineering Corps uniforms without knowing the significance, but from what he could see, "It's exactly the same as it was fourteen hundred years ago."

"Fourteen hundred years ago?" Luke hissed at him.

"I was here since then two times, but I was blindfolded and only saw the conference room. The layout looks exactly the same. Follow me, and act like you've got all day. There hasn't been any hurry here in eighteen hundred years." Before then it had been hurry hurry hurry, everywhere and everywhen.

He led them out of the main building over to the right, where there were still stairs that led down to a small platform that seemingly had no use whatsoever. They'd installed a railing, but it was easy enough to hop over that and head into the pipes and cables.

There used to be guards here. There used to be alarms. But no one knew there was something that needed guarding here. They all just trusted that the City would keep working, keep protecting them from the miasma. He remembered what Order members high up enough to know about it were told about the city. Dawn Age this and Yulia that. No one remembered that it had once been Population Sanctuary No. 28, one of only four that survived to this day, and two of those only had because they'd been converted into sephiroth.

The pipes he was walking on should contain blood instead of 97.3 percent pure third fonon.

Here was the portal, and finally, some security! No keycard, no voiceprint, they'd welded a panel over the code keys and it had to be boobytrapped: "This is where things will get interesting." Niadesdin, no, Jade murmured. "They'll probably be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. That is, if they notice anything." The terminal a few rows over _was _working. Or, it was after he depressed three keys simultaneously and held them down while typing out the codeword. "The Yulia Road is their only evacuation route since the last hoverdrives went down with the airships. It's also their only supply line. I was one of their top engineers but I wasn't the mayor: I don't have the Seige Mode codes. I would go force them out of Teodoro but he would have no idea what I was talking about…" He hated unnecessary explanations and taking, but he found it provided a bit of an anchor. "Tear's a good girl but the inbreeding shows. Guy's mother was Kimlascan, perhaps that explains it." He'd met Albert. _Everyone_ had met Albert. A good engineer, but very good at taking credit and politicking. "Luckily, my last incarnation here never did get around to closing the security holes this one idiot put in before he was executed for heresy." That was probably around when they'd decided to lose the knowledge of how the city worked. There was too much truth buried in these files: you could use that knowledge or you could lose it. There was no workable censored in-between.

"If I'm quiet for too long remind me of what my name is." He'd never appreciated how fontech was like fonic artes. He'd thought it was messy bits of metal and so on instead of the pure simplicity of his mind and the fonons. Fontech, at least in the Dawn Ages, wasn't a perfect moment like fonic artes were. Fontech could contain within it a perfect world where everything made sense and did what you told it to. Of course, you could tell it to do things like explode if you did it wrong, but there was always something wrong somewhere that could be found and fixed. The world in Yulia City's fontech was right, and would go right if you did things right. Auldrant itself was wrong, and perhaps nothing that he could do would fix it.

"Ah, the undineponics garden is just in stasis, they didn't mess around with it." Starting it up again was well within his powers. "Those doors opening should hopefully keep them busy for awhile, and it's a _good_ change." Not that they were all that fond of change. "The alarms I'm not going to be able to help."

"Alarms?" Jade hadn't told them about that part, and Luke wasn't happy.

"I need complete control over the system. It will give me that if there's an emergency and all the people with higher authorization than me aren't responding." Jade, the part of him who had once slaved over these systems to keep people alive wincing, turned one of the point defense blasters on an expendable intake valve as the piece de resistance of the lie he'd been crafting to defile a thing of truth. "And oh look, they aren't." The viewscreens in every room had been turned off or set to screensaver centuries ago. The alarms still rang out. "Earplugs, everyone." They would still be able to make out people talking to them but ambient noise would be filtered to a manageable level.

"The Yulia Road is shut down, undineponic recovery has been given priority one, anyone who tries to enter or leave by other routes will be fired on..." He should stop it there, let them waste time scrambling to figure out what had just happened. Let them starve to death if they were foolish enough to destroy the gardens: he'd heard of what had happened to Grand Chokmah, siege and slaughter and… And these people had spent two millennia _watching_, secure in their little shell of unreality, the bubble he'd spent that life maintaining for people who didn't know the first thing about how precarious their place was, far more hazardous than those poor souls they mocked in the Outer Realms…

But while Col. Jade Curtiss had never grasped the reality of death he'd still spent his life fighting against it, one way or another. And so had most of his other selves. Again, one way or another. Their deaths weren't necessary, the fact he had enough control to kill them all proved that.

So he reactivated the viewscreens and let them display the emergency advisory, so they'd know that they had to preserve their food source and would die if they tried to escape from the safe little bubble that had just become their safe little cage.

"Are you okay?" Asch, yes, that was who it was.

"I'll be fine."

"You look like you felt like I did sometimes, when I killed."

"I think I understand how you felt." Lorelei's fonon healed. If it went against everything Niadesdin had stood for to harm this place, what must killing be to Lorelei? "In some small measure." The viewscreens could double as cameras, since there were meant to be two-way conversations through them on demand. "I'll see if Guy's here." No one in the city was registered (except that he'd just registered himself), but he could run a search for someone with blond hair, around six feet, probably wearing atypical clothing… "He's here." Buried headfirst in a panel, which had made it take awhile to find him. "None of Vandesdelca's allies are, as far as I can tell," he reported a moment later. "Looking at the map, he's at Tear's house." Well, at least talking like this had let it get his voiceprint. He did so prefer verbal commands, like the one he'd used on the Tartarus. They could be used while running, for one thing. "They'll probably go there to interrogate him as soon as they get their act together. Take a look." He displayed the main area on the wall. "Chickens with their heads cut off indeed." Pathetic. What had happened to the emergency drills? Oh, the Score didn't foretell any emergencies. Niadesdin's response to that had been unprintable and fatal.

"Can we get over there unseen?" Luke was the more cautious one. Of course, he couldn't go through walls.

"Easily. That's one of the Family residences, it has secret passages." Even secret passages needed maintenance.

"How long would it take?"

"Ten seconds if we rush. That residence usually went to the _useful _member of the Family. Forty-five if we don't want him to figure out how we got in and where we came from." Jade started closing everything down. "Also, I suggest we blame this on Asch, since he's the odd one and the hardest to kill."

"I agree."

"I just hope he doesn't ask me for details."

"You wouldn't give him any even if you knew them, so it won't matter." Hopefully not, at least. How likely was Asch to cave? Not very, not with Luke here. Jade shook his head. "I hope I can get back to my normal habits of thought soon. Niadesdin never moved past the outraged by human stupidity phase. If he'd accepted it as inevitable and learned to laugh at it like I have he'd have been much better off." He stood up, pleased to note there wasn't any dust. Yes, they'd built to last. "Shall we?"

After some wordless communication Luke finally nodded, giving Jade and Asch permission. They went through some tunnels and finally Jade paused.

When it went on long enough Luke finally asked, "What's wrong?"

"My alternate just met Anise's father. It explains a lot." Well, there was nothing that could be done about it at the moment. "Open estema!" Only the initial door had such a cliché trigger phrase. Kymtearolca had been the most tolerable of Yulia's descendants that he'd ever met. He would never know how much trouble she'd gotten into for smuggling him a suicide method so he wouldn't die tossed into the miasma as per tradition.

This life, that wasn't written in the score? The others were underlined,_ made_ real. Compared to them this one sometimes felt like a dream.

Jade leaned back against the wall when they entered. Perhaps he should take Asch's advice and start keeping a journal. Running over what had happened in his head this often was a time-waster.


	8. Neutron Star

Gailardia scratched his head, finally shaking it as he gave up and replaced the odd panel he'd taken down in hopes he could figure out what was causing all that racket. It had stopped just as mysteriously as it came, and with it went his excuse to dig around in there. Mayor Teodoro had been very adamant about not touching anything since they didn't know how to fix it, and while Guy had kept his word, since he'd been allowed to look at things that were already broken, he had the sinking feeling that if this wasn't some random normal occurrence it was going to be blamed on him.

He was going stir crazy already. He didn't know anyone here. Since the original Luke had abandoned him and Vandesdelca hadn't been able to convince him to help, what did he have to do? He could have gone to Sheridan as Van had suggested, but playing around while the world was going to end, one way or another, wasn't his style.

So… He wouldn't be allowed back in the fon Fabre house, not now they thought Luke was dead, and that wasn't someplace either of them were all that likely to go, not with things being the way they were.

Baticul was amazing, but being there and knowing what was going on… Not to mention Van's attempts to convert him… Van hadn't wanted to let him wander off, but since Guy had given him an ultimatum Yulia City was a fascinating… cage. There was no getting out of here without Teodoro's say-so, and Teodoro knew he was a friend of the person who was supposed to be a good boy and repeat Hod for them.

He was bait. But at least it was better than Belkend.

He flopped back on what was probably Tear's bed. They told his family to let the Albertesque Seal be broken over their dead bodies for two millennia and now they wanted him to help destroy it? No wonder Van had kept him in the dark.

There was a knock on the door that led out to the selenia garden. As far as Guy knew there was no way someone could be in there without going past him. Which meant it was someone he couldn't keep out if he wanted to. "Come in."

The door slid open.

"Luke."

"It's Asch now."

"Oh yeah, right." He'd known this kid all his life, and seeing his Luke be so nervous around him: it was just wrong. "What Van said, it's true. But I swear I thought you were Luke, I swear I never actually did anything to hurt him or your parents, or you, and I swear I didn't know what he wanted to do at Akzeriuth."

"What did you do?"

"Reported to him, mostly."

"Why didn't you do anything else?"

"Do you remember… No, wait, you wouldn't." Guy found this whole conversation just so awkward. "I went to Belkend and found out what they were doing. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anyway, you wouldn't remember anything from then, it was after you learned to talk but you were probably still too young to have actual memories. I was telling you about noble customs, and giving someone your sword if they were worthy to be your lord? You said that you wanted me to stay with you forever and that you wanted me to give you my sword. I wouldn't, but I promised that I would if you became someone worthy of it. I didn't expect you to, but a promise was a promise."

Luke, his Luke, laughed sheepishly, and he'd grown up so much in just these few weeks. What had he missed? "But I didn't. I was an awful brat."

"Yeah, but… you were _my_ awful brat. I didn't have any family but Pere, and… your original was… a good kid, it wasn't hard to be his friend, but then you came home, only it wasn't home, and you needed me. Your father, well, you know." And his mother was sick. He wasn't going to win any points insulting Luke's parents. "I think Pere lost the battle first. You used to toddle after him asking about the flowers no matter how you got punished for it. You mostly stopped, but only because they started punishing him."

"I remember that, because I did it so often."

"You weren't Luke fon Fabre, son of the man who killed my whole family, even before I knew about the replica deal. You were _Luke_. Like the kid brother you didn't actually want but are stuck with and they kinda grow on you." Mary hadn't been that fond of him on the surface, but when it came down to it…

"What about Lu-my original?" That was fair, asking that. Family, after all. If it were war, Guy would fight Luke, but this wasn't a war unless Vandesdelca made it one and it wasn't right to start something like that, not with children like they had been. Hod had been wrong, and doing the same thing to the whole world: didn't he get that it was even worse?

"I had several years wanting to kill him and I managed not to. But I did want to, that was why the curse slot worked. I really did. Now, though… It's not going to bring Mary back. A replica just wouldn't be her, just like you're not him. If I hadn't known you I might have. I really might have. It seems like poetic justice. The world destroyed Hod so that it could have prosperity, so why not the other way around? But even though he did that stuff to you, your original did, you would have hated it if he died because of you. I hate that Mary had to die so I could live. I… your father's just a symptom, Van was right. There are a thousand more like him. And when it comes down to it I _don't _want to kill them all no matter who suffers. If I killed him, and you, it wouldn't stop until Eldrant replaced Auldrant. You can't draw the line. It's not good and evil, it's… "

"A seething mass of stupidity."

"That's kind of a poetic way of putting it." Jade was here? He wondered who else was. "By their fruits you shall know them. That's what it comes down to. It's an old saying. People will say they're the good guys, and they can have all sorts of arguments, but the way you can tell is to look at results. Vandesdelca… he did that to you. He tried to kill thousands of people. And you did something that should have made it so that you couldn't be brought back for the sake of people you barely knew. In a heartbeat, from how he described it. You were confused, you didn't know what was going on and you didn't want to believe it was happening, but you didn't hesitate once you realized that it was your death or the city's You… it's my fault, too, that you didn't know what the right thing to do was so much of the time. But when you knew it, you did it. The way you treated Ion, I… I was so proud of you," he confessed. "Before we got back to Baticul and Van. You were like a plant that had been stuck in a pot it had outgrown, and then when you were out in the world you went from half-dead to, you just bloomed." He hadn't wanted to look, he'd turned his head away at some point. He couldn't stand seeing Luke lost and confused and hurt like that. Worse than a kicked puppy.

So it was a surprise when Luke hugged him. He hadn't done anything like that in ages, screaming that he wasn't a kid anymore when he was inside, he needed someone to tell him what his place was, not treat him like a kid while demanding he act like a near-adult. Still, it was near-reflex for Guy to note his temperature.

Human skin wasn't like this, not unless sunbathing was involved and then the heat was from outside, not inside. Even fevers were an unhealthy heat. Luke felt like fireside stones almost. Not hot, not unpleasant, but radiating a heat that made muscles relax almost instantly.

That, and his eyes. They weren't quite right: Guy had forcibly cleaned his face enough times to tell that.

Luke had died. He'd never seen a body, so this was when it really hit him. Luke had died. His Luke had died, and he hadn't been able to stop it. He'd failed him.

He held him tight. "I'll give you my sword," he promised, the words pouring out. "I will. You will become someone worthy of it, I know you will, and I promise I'll protect you until everyone can see that you are."

"You don't have to, Guy. Just that you want to, it means a lot." His Luke's voice was small.

"I know, but I want to. Or are you going to refuse it?"

"I wouldn't!" Of course he wouldn't.

"Thank you, Luke."

"Asch."

"Asch." There wasn't a speck of dirt on that face. Too perfect. "That's going to take getting used to."

"I don't think there's anything that isn't." Asch smiled. "And by the time we get used to it there'll be new stuff that we need to get used to."

"Yeah." Guy smiled back. "So, where to?"

-

A/N: Yes, I realize that there is no particular ending/resolution here. However, as Death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series says, "THERE'S NO JUSTICE, THERE'S JUST ME."

a) I'm writing this fic. If you want an ending and I don't feel like writing what you consider a proper one, that's what the imagination is for.

b) Life doesn't have nice neat tie up all lose ends endings. The "And they lived happily ever after" ending can be translated as, "They got things to a point where they were prettymuch set provided they kept doing what they'd been doing (eg. Going through thickets of stabbity death and back for the sake of the person they grew to love instead of saying 'the magic's gone' when there was a life-or-death battle over the TV remote), and there's not much point in going further because who really cares how many kids they had? You're here for the slaying of dragons and crashing of parties and years of hardship traveling around the world that are finally made worth it by reuniting with/earning the love of the person who will love you back just as fiercely."

The Absorption Gate in ToA is a very good example of: "Yes, you beat the bad guy, but guess what? Life goes on and the reward for a job well done is surviving to get stuck with the next job."

The ending of Tales of the Abyss is that Luke? Dies. His story is over. The epilogue is the beginning of another story. I'm not going to let Luke/Asch die for the sake of a nice neat ending. And the only 'real' ending is an _ending_.

Hence, I have decided to pick Luke & Guy reuniting as the point where I say, they've gotten their act together and if they keep doing what they're doing (reuniting with estranged loved ones coughIngobertcoughAnisecough, for example), then they'll be fine. Also, I've gotten what I wanted out of this fic and there are others I want to work on.

This fic mostly happened because I had a scenelet of Luke sacrificing himself and was all, what would happen if that did? It's slight AU, but that's because characters wanted to say certain things. I was prettymuch transcribing here. For instance, Jade was dead a long time, and due to his knowledge of fonons he was very aware that this couldn't possibly be good. So, if there was going to be a horrible side effect he wanted one that would make him even more evil win, especially since I'd just managed to _lose a third of the party._ Well, actually, half, and replace them with an unknown quantity and a _suicidal ghost_. So he picked this, and then he was breathing down my neck about how I'd better not Stu him, because that would make it seem as though he _needed_ to be Stu'd to be that kickass. If you think he's not Stu'd, could you tell him, please? Because he's kind of breathing down my neck. Or holding a spear pointed at it, whichever.

This fic was prettymuch pure character-driven. As you may see, my Natalia and Tear muses are sort of weak compared to the others (as in, I'm not as good as the characters, not that the characters are weak by any means), or at least they're _quiet_ compared to the ones that talk over them. Well, to be fair, Natalia was a little peeved that I wasn't putting in any situations where she could really contribute, and if she was going to look like a minor character anyway then why should she bother gracing this fic with her presence? And Tear gets overwhelmed easily. You know, the blushing and the dotdotdots. She's not that good at handling emotional stuff except by ignoring it, telling others to ignore it, or fighting. She needs_ Luke, _in the game, to force her to deal with her messed up emotions. That's how messed up she is, that _he _can see she needs therapy. So, I put them someplace where they could contribute and everyone's happy.

I like fics where there's action. It might not be combat, but things happening/things being found out/revealed right after another and having to go from figuring out what's going on to applying that knowledge without much opportunity to find out if they're right edge of seat sort of stuff. Natalia and Tear need chances to stop and figure out what's going on and I find that pretty boring. I mean, I'll do it, but only if I want the scenes with that sort of character enough to bother. ToA usually doesn't bother to wait on them, at least not onscreen. Of course, they skip to the end of explanations often but I'm telling you things you don't already know and can't get away with that.

This was a Luke & Asch centric fic and a conflict with Van centric one. Original-Luke's problems with his family and Natalia and yadda yadda yadda… years of therapy. Years. And I don't want to either wave a cheesy magic wand and do it in a few thousand words or skip over it, as that would be a whole 'nother fic. The hypnotism excuse and being able to fix it is a little cheesy, since he probably was that messed up without hypnotism, even if Van using it is canon, but the discussion about Akzeriuth happened and then original-Luke claimed it was hypnosis, and I was yeah, right. Sure, you keep telling yourself that.

No, I'm serious, please do, this is interesting stuff. Good or not I don't know, but interesting.

But I'm done playing around with these versions of the characters for now and will probably get back to the fics in which Jade is ticked off with me because it's an utter AR and he _still _got his fon slots sealed, not to mention that Luke might be secretly evil, or the one where Asch just got himself possessed by Lorelei. I don't know where that Lorelei muse came from, I really don't.

All I know is the characters are looking at me for how to fix things since supposedly that's what authors are for, planning out resolutions, and I'm going "No way. _You're _the world-saving heroes, _you_ figure out how to save the day. I'm a writer, not a fighter. "

So when characters say they've got it sorted out and don't need me anymore it's sometimes annoying (in the case of Eva in _Rapture_) and sometimes a relief. It's sort of both in this case.


End file.
